Abstract:Industrial Ethernet is the preferred network technology in industrial green field deployments. Although the performance of these networks is superior compared to legacy fieldbuses, the complexity of possible installations is an issue in the field. Both selection and placement of active devices and efficiently running network services are causing problems in planning and also during the life of the network. This paper is giving an overview on implementation possibilities of switched network in industrial applications with respect to performance, features, logical architecture, and flexibility. It also shows the importance of time synchronization and presents current standardization work with focus on impact on industrial applications. An outlook for expected future possibilities is shown, including the use of Software Defined Networking (SDN).